


Belief

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nora collects names like Cait once collected shell casings. Pretty glitter and rattle, trinkets and mementos. Some cool enough to jingle, others fresh and scorching.</p>
<p>(or: Nora gives Cait someone to believe in)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belief

Nora collects names like Cait once collected shell casings. Pretty glitter and rattle, trinkets and mementos. Some cool enough to jingle, others fresh and scorching.

Piper calls her Blue, for the suit. It works okay, though Cait thinks she’s not blue at all. Orange, maybe, or yellow like a faded sundress. Something warm, pulsing. Like a heartbeat, like the first touch of dawn. Like a promise kept.

Preston calls her General, for her rank. Not even a hat to show for it though; she favors a battered fedora with a tiny peacock feather stuck in the brim and tilted at a rakish angle. Doesn’t matter. She wears authority in her bones. She walks and the world turns.

Deacon calls her Wanderer, for some secret-agent routine of his own, some Railroad cloak and dagger shit. She’s tracked enough dirt across the Commonwealth to earn it though, roads twisted through her veins. Could map the Commonwealth in her scars and bruises, all the little things that stimpaks can’t heal. Always a smile, a nod at some settler or drifter who recognizes her. Wanderer without a home, the Red Rocket station more base than comfort.

Cait calls her _friend_.

Never had a friend before, someone to watch her back and not just her arse.

Cait’s got her own collection of names too, ugly reminders like the laddered track-marks down her arms.

‘Little Bird’ was Tommy’s little joke, back in the cage. Fatherly bullshit from a man who was still more a father than the asshole that sold her for a pocketful of caps. He _gave_ her away; not much better, but she had no chains. Only Psycho’s red haze blocking off her exits.

‘Caitlin’ from her parents, lilt and music all from accent, not love. Always felt too long, too itchy. Like they were hoping to give their slip of a girl something to grow into. As if they could sell her by the pound.

‘Girl’ or ‘Hey You’ from the raiders, when names mattered at all.

Every single one tastes like smoke and sour vomit. Bleeding gums and gunpowder baked into her teeth.

The chems helped for a while. Buffout bitter and chalky, made her big, yeah, got the rage going. Med-X was too soft and foggy, head swathed in cotton and she hated how she always felt like she was shitting bricks after. Jet kept her jittery, teeth rattling down her spine and lungs too big for her chest.

But Psycho was good. Kept her numb enough to forget, kept her angry enough to keep her shotgun pointed at the world instead of herself.

Without the Psycho though-- things taste different. Colors look different. Not better, but unfiltered.

Cait knows rage tastes like Psycho, like needles on her teeth. Knows regret like iron in her blood.

(Friendship tastes like noodles, over-salted with chunks of greasy molerat, seasoning slightly stale but it’s good, it’s hot, it was worth it as Nora laughed and laughed and dripped snot like a leaky faucet. Her fancy prewar teeth gleaming star-bright in the dim room as she shuffled the battered cards. Cait hadn’t the heart to explain the deck was marked.)

But there’s no hunger anymore. No more craving for the liquor or the Psycho. Doesn’t know what to do with her hands, now. How to settle herself to sleep. A bottle’d warm her from the inside, sure, but they didn’t fight their way through the Gunners in Vault 95 just for Cait to fall back into old habits.

So she sits against the wall, pillow cushioning the bend of her spine. Blankets rumpled over her knees, moonlight slanted across her arms. The green weight of the radstorm heavy in the air, the crackle of rain across the roof. Trying to sleep. Failing.

Snaps her teeth when a warm mug’s pressed into her hands, old instincts battering their way up. Must be losing her edge-- didn’t even hear Nora come up. Cait flinches for apology, breathes the mint-rich steam. Blocks out old ghosts.

“Hot tea always helps me sleep at night,” Nora says, sitting loose-limbed and easy on the edge of a nearby chair. Knees spilling sideways, toes on the ground. Like she might leave any moment, if Cait says the word. Like Cait’s got a world full of choices she never had before.

“Thank you,” Cait says, ignoring the lump in her throat. Takes a sip, and it’s sweet with carefully hoarded sugar. Cait blinks away the ocean spilling in her eyes. Distant lights too bright now, cast haloes across the sky. More warmth and sweetness in this small mug than all her childhood.

“You’re welcome.” And she smiles, and-- it’s blessing, benediction, forgiveness. Peace like a balm, like prayers pencilled in a flaking family Bible. Because Nora still wears the cross around her neck.

(Once, Cait asked if Nora believed. If Nora believed in justice, if that was why she studied law. Before the bombs fell and before ‘law’ became a patchwork thing across the settlements, only as strong as the nearest gun.

“No,” Nora had sighed, fingers tracing shadows across the moon as they lay on top of the roof, arms spread so just their fingertips touched. “I don’t believe in divine justice. Just us.” She had tilted her palm up, like supplication, like offering-- and Cait settled her hand on top of Nora’s. No more weight than the moonlight, not even daring to lace their fingers together as Nora finishes, “ _That_ is why I studied law.”)

The martyr on the chain catches the light. Gold and glitter, shimmering hope.

Cait’s never believed in anything.

But she might believe in Nora.

 


End file.
